8 interior design mistakes home owners are guilty of

We’ve made interior design mistakes before, from impulse buying to changing your wall color for the 3rd time. These are just the most common ones most home owners have made. Let’s just put it out there so it doesn’t happen again.

1. Good things can’t be rushed

Sometimes the excitement is just too much that we rush into things. Plan your room’s design before you go buy anything, or worse, before you tear down that wall. Usually when you buy furniture you just fell in love with, it wouldn’t work out with everything else in the room. The worst part is that you can’t take it back. Think of your paint color and paint finish first to match the furniture or you can do it the other way around. Personally, I’d prefer buying furniture first.

2. Measuring your space

Impulse furniture buying, admit it, you’re guilty. Measure your room before going to the furniture shop. This is in the planning part of the work process. This will help you avoid over furnishing your room. This will also be important so that you know how much you can spend on this particular area in your room. Here is a reference for standard interior design measurements that might come in handy.

3. Planning without a budget

Have a budget before you go to home depot. Shop around and see what items are within the range of your budget and if it fits with everything else in your design plan. More importantly, don’t buy everything all at once. You want to leave some extra cash for those time that you need something just in case.

4. Scale and proportion

You’ve probably heard this before; “When you enter a room it should be like a city scape…..You don’t want everything to be at the same level.” This was said by Linda Floyd, an interior designer based in California. Also, you want to make sure that the furniture you pick is not too big or too small for your room.

5. Too much coordination

Too much coordination can sometimes leave no room for creativity. You don’t want to over- design your room that it ends up feeling impersonal. Leave some room personalization and making your space feel like a home. Add a collection of your favourite toys or a gallery of handpicked art. The trick is not to go overboard with it.

6. Too high or too low

Hang frames too high or too low and your neck is bound to get strained. Put in mind the people who will come in the house and hang your artworks at eye level. Most galleries hang their framed art 58 inches from the middle of the artwork to the ground.

7. Inappropriate white walls

There are only 2 times you should consider plain white walls, first is if the rooms architecture calls for it, second is when you ultimately decide to stick with a limited color palette and just work with texture and contrast. Pretty soon you are going to get bored with it so, might as well go for something more versatile. Go for lighter neutrals instead.

8. Ask for help

Everyone makes interior design mistakes, so don’t feel bad. Feel free to ask for help and collaborate. After looking at a design months on end, we tend to miss the mistakes in them. Get a trusted friend to look at what you have done and ask for an honest opinion. Go as far as hiring an interior designer for consultation. Get as much advice as you can, pick the ones you think are the best and go for it.

You can click this button down here and ask us for help. Haha, see what I did there?

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About the Author

Jodie is a writer, artist, wanderer, everybody's "roomie" and ultimately a millennial. A keen eye for design with a penchant for on point metaphor construction, she will make the mundane slightly more interesting. She was also raised by the internet and early 00's references. It figures.